


The Lily of the West

by Laylah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ancestor-Era, Community: oddible, F/F, Gen, Pastfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindfang fled, and it was Dusklight who had blood on her hands when the legislacerator arrived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lily of the West

**Author's Note:**

> For oddible, prompted by Crooked Still's "Flora," because Mindfang would be totally the kind of gorgeous, faithless woman who'd prompt another woman to kill for her out of jealousy.
> 
> In before Andrew finishes jossing this idea? Just barely, maybe.

The cobbles are slick, the back streets narrow and filthy. Countess Dusklight Vestalia flees through the dark, elegant slippers sliding on the wet stones, fashionable skirts soaked with blood and weighing her down. Worse than that: proving a beacon for the hunter who follows her.

Legislacerator Redglare is like a—no, be fair; huntbeasts can only aspire to the voracious, implacable way she stalks her prey. Dusklight should never have caught her attention, _would_ never have caught her attention, if not for Mindfang's maddening dalliances. It was never enough for Mindfang that she had a constant companion flushed scarlet for her, willing to give anything for her; still Mindfang toyed with slaves and peasants, trolls weak enough to be overcome by her power. She made conquests of them, broke them, as if she was daring Dusklight to object.

And now Dusklight has objected, in language strong enough that even Mindfang could not twist it to something else: with a bright-bladed knife in the back of the latest of them, with the spilling of mud-golden blood all over the floor of that rented room. Mindfang fled, and it was Dusklight who had blood on her hands when the legislacerator arrived.

She turns a corner and finds herself facing the impassive stone wall of a dead end. Three stories up, the teasing edge of the green moon is just visible above the roofline; in her finery, Dusklight cannot make the climb.

She kicks off her slippers, takes her ruffled skirts between her hands and tears the layers of satin away. The wet ripping of the fabric makes her flinch, but she can always make more gowns. With the skirt discarded and her hands wiped dry on her bodice, Dusklight reaches for the wall. Her claws dig into the soft mortar between stones, her toes finding purchase in the miniscule footholds available. The effort makes her muscles burn as she fights her way upward, but she is no mewling grub to be easily culled.

Dusklight is nearly halfway up the wall, reaching for a narrow decorative ledge, when the dragon-skull head of a cane catches her around the waist and yanks. She hisses a curse, falling, and when her shoulders hit the ground the breath huffs out of her. Still she makes herself roll, away from the looming presence of the legislacerator.

"Not bad," Redglare says. Her smile glitters in the moonlight, wide and hungry. Dusklight wonders for a moment if the rumors she was dragon-raised are true; she certainly seems predatory enough. The acknowledgment is almost flattering until she goes on, "I'm impressed that she could find such a good decoy."

"I'm no pawn of hers," Dusklight snaps.

"That," Redglare says smugly, "is what they all say."

Fury burns in Dusklight's veins. _She's red for me_ , she wants to say, but she's sure Redglare would tell her that Mindfang's pawns all say _that_ , too. "Why follow me," she says instead, "if she's still your quarry?"

"Didn't I say you were a good decoy?" Redglare asks. "I followed the blood."

Something isn't right here, and not only the fact that the legislacerator has yet to maim her and drag her in. Dusklight has seen Mindfang kill before, and her kills are as extravagant as the rest of her persona, nothing like the simple stab wound with which Dusklight sent her message. Surely Redglare must know this, after studying her prey.

"You didn't want to bring her to bay," Dusklight says, and the faint stiffening of Redglare's shoulders tells her she's right. She slips the stiletto-pin from her hair, palming it as she climbs slowly to her feet.

"Don't be ridiculous," Redglare scoffs. "The code of the legislacerators is absolute. I _will_ bring her down."

"But not here," Dusklight says. "Not in a nameless tavern in a backwater town with no witnesses." The longer Redglare lets her speak, the more certain she is that she's right. "You want something spectacular, just like she does." She licks her lips, her heart pounding in her chest. "You're as black for her as I am red."

Redglare takes a threatening step closer, and Dusklight has the horrible feeling that she could never be well-armed enough for this fight. "And you would have me let you go based on that?" she purrs. "If I tracked you and found her, you'd be responsible for your matesprit's death."

The chill down Dusklight's spine isn't easy to fight off. "Not if she bested you," she says. And Mindfang _could_ , she has every confidence. She's seen how glorious, how merciless Mindfang can be.

Redglare laughs, a terrible, harsh screeching. "If you believe in her that much," she says, "then run to her, by all means." The theatrical flourish of her hand is so like one of Mindfang's gestures it's uncanny.

Dusklight doesn't wait to be told twice. She flees.


End file.
